RESULTS OF LIFE 255 



those which have been forced into it, and, on the other hand, from the 

 results of the exciting force of movements. It is indeed easily per- 

 ceived that in an organised body, this force regulates its activity in 

 all the organs of the body, that it preserves harmony in its activities 

 through the connection of these organs, that so long as they maintain 

 their integrity it everywhere makes good the wastage wrought by the 

 first cause, that it profits by the changes taking place in the compound 

 moving fluids to appropriate from these fluids the assimilated substances 

 which they carry and to fix them in their right positions, lastly, that 

 by this order of things it always conduces to the preservation of hfe. 

 This same force also conduces to growth of the parts in a living body ; 

 but this growth soon comes to an end in almost every part, for a special 

 reason which I shall state in its proper place ; and it then endows the 

 body with the faculty of reproducing itself. 



Let me repeat then that this singular force, which is derived from the 

 exciting cause of organic movements, and which in organised bodies 

 brings about the existence of hfe and produces so many wonderful 

 phenomena, is not the result of any special laws but of certain con- 

 ditions and of a certain order of things and acts which give it the power 

 of producing such effects. Now among the effects to which this force 

 gives rise in living bodies, we must include that of building up diverse 

 combinations, of making them more complex, of loading them with 

 such principles as can be forced into combination, and of incessantly 

 creating substances which, but for it and but for the combination of 

 circumstances in which it works, would never have existed in 

 nature?} 



It is true that the trend of arguments, generally received by the 

 physiologists, physicists and chemists of our century, is very different 

 from that of the principles which I have set forth and developed 

 elsewhere. -"^ It is however not my purpose to endeavour to change 

 this tendency of thought, and thus convert my contemporaries ; but 

 I was obhged to state here the two doctrines concerned, because they 

 complete the explanation that I have given of the phenomena of Hfe, 

 and because I am convinced of their accuracy, and know that without 

 them we shall always have to imagine for hving bodies laws contrary 

 to those which regulate the phenomena of other bodies. 



It appears to me beyond question, that if we enquire sufficiently 

 as to what happens in the objects concerned, we shall soon be con- 

 vinced : 



That the organic functions of all living beings confer on them the 

 faculty, in some cases (plants) of forming direct combinations, that is, 

 of uniting free elements after modification, and of immediately pro- 



' Hydrogeologie, p. 105. 



